Broken Photo Album
by Lady of the Rose and Rain
Summary: This is a collection of oneshots of all the characters. They're a bit angsty though. Flying Glass and Losing hope makes for a happy ending have been REPOSTED! Please R&R!
1. Losing hope makes for a happy ending

Losing hope makes for a happy ending

by Lady of the Rose and Rain

Looking over cliffs is so much fun.

It's even cooler to look to see what's at the bottom-sharp rocks, alligators, high water to drown in.

But you know what's coolest? When you don't care if you fall down there.

When it doesn't bother you anymore.

My name is Yusuke and I have come to the point in my life where nothing matters but a nice dive over the edge. The ultimate escape, the ultimate relief of pain.

And you know why I think I'm so cool about now?

Because I don't care if no one else does right now. And the feeling doesn't seem to go away. It sinks to the bottom of my stomach, the cradle of my soul and is being rocked gently to sleep.

What you probably don't understand is why I think this is cool.

I revel in my pain and hopelessness and it's the greatest feeling when you want the pain to stay. When you no longer need anybody or anything to comfort you or tell you everything's okay. It's a feeling of...

freedom. Liberation.

When you can enjoy pain, you can enjoy everything. But that's just my philosophy. But also from personal experience.

I have come to harsh realizations and nobody was there to comfort me. I came to the truth when I was alone and trapped to face it. I cried when no one heard me. People broke my heart and the only thing I could do was watch it slide off the wall it was thrown against. I have been taken advantage of and it took years before I realized how stupid I was to let it happen. The audience laughed as I performed for them and came to realize that my relationship to these people was nothing more than show business.

And the worst of all, no one is here to say it's okay.

My life did not get any happier because it's been so sad.

That only happens in fairy tales or movies.

I don't want to feel anything anymore. I want to take hold of the wind and let it give me wings. And if I fall, I won't mind anymore, because the worst part is yet to be said.

I realized my own faults, my own shortcomings, and knew then and there that I caused my own pain-sometimes. I realized at that moment why I had stumbled in the dark for so long, so often. Have you ever tripped up so often you don't care what causes it? I have and came to realize I had been tripping over my own faults, like untied shoelaces. The problems with you, with me...

And love. I don't care who it comes from, because it hasn't mattered who it came from, it's all useless. You fall head over heels for someone who doesn't care about you and won't ten years after they've taken your soul and thrown it in their purse or pocket. Feelings can blind anyone and they've blinded me to taking a fall.

Over a cliff.

Then those stupid questions start. What did I do? Where did I go wrong? Why didn't I see that before? How could I have been so stupid?

Then the loneliness starts. You wonder if you're destined to be with anybody anymore. You're too stupid to see the truth and know too much to go back into something you can't see through. Nobody will hold your hand or suddenly come and sweep you off your feet like a fairy tale, he or she came because you're _sooo_ deserving, you've suffered and now you deserve happiness.

Someone should be shot for making those stories, making children believe that crap. That's why they can't accept reality now. Why _I_ can't accept it now. I guess.

I don't care if no one else does about my pain. I don't _really_ care if no one cares if I die.

And you know something, it's the greatest feeling in the world, I really haven't had it in a while.

Of course, though, you know I've already done it, jumped off, of course.

In my soul last night, I spread my arms at the ever-embracing sky, not caring if I'd ever reach there, now or dead.

I jumped off the cliff and no one was around.

If you see Yusuke, send this letter to him and tell him what happened last night. He's probably wondering where I went.

Why he feels like he's missing something...


	2. Flying Glass

Flying Glass

by Lady of the Rose and Rain

It was an ironic way for my life to end.

Have you ever stood outside and died from soft rain drops that gently break its fall for you?

I have, but then it wasn't rain drops.

Hiei could tell you, he found my body in the house. And to this day, he is still wondering how it all happened. He looks around at what fell in the house and wonders, along with the rest of the gang, and wonders how in all of burning hell he missed this phenomenon.

It happened like any person who's at their end.

You live, you learn and I have lived to learn that being human can confuse you.

Shiori's (sp?) dead, the rest of the gang has left, Hiei has gone back to whatever he was doing before he met us, and me...no one knows I suffer because I chose to be human.

I still remember when I told Hiei I loved him. Or at the least, liked him. It was sunny, Yusuke and Keiko were with each other, having what kind of argument that only God knows about-again. It was warm, but not too hot. Nobody could hear me except Hiei when those three words slipped out of my slender lips and onto his ears. The youkai opened his eyes wide in fear as though I attempted to have intercourse with mere words. The short fire demon shot back a couple of yards and everybody-yes, including KuwaBAKA, as they appropriately call him-interrupted themselves to see what had interrupted two people who were usually not bothered by much, or appeared not to be. Hiei...I'll never forget those eyes...that face. Stay away from me, I don't know what you're up to but...I'm not like you, like that, just...stay away. His words rang through me, through my soul, supersonic chords screeching loudly, getting higher in pitch, louder in sound, until...

the breaking point.

I faintly remember him escaping me, my grasp, my longing...my heart. The object of my affection I had held in my heart now escaped me in more than just my mind.

He was no longer in reach.

I collapsed slowly, then faster, as though someone flying through air. It was that feeling a human gets when they're sailing through the air and for some strange reason, feel absolutely calm, almost enjoying it, before realizing the ground was closer than you estimated. You become so caught up in that butterflies-in-your-stomach, freedom feeling you forget you had no wings anyway, and the ground catches you by surprise.

Of course, my demon senses, my youko side wouldn't allow me to do this in real time. So, it happened all in my mind, which was worse because all these concerned people that barely looked like friends-I couldn't make them out because I had crashed in my own mind-came to ask me what happened.

Voices I could make out enough to know it was Yukina, Kuwabara, Yusuke, even Botan who doesn't notice much and the rest calling out to me, genuinely concerned about me, about him...

Since my youko senses wouldn't allow me to truly collapse, I simply sat down, positioned my coat (yes, I brought it just in case of bad weather, how ironic...) over me, laid down on the ground and basked in the warmth of the sun. I curled up in the coat, and ignored the world. The rest of the gang must have left because when I came to late that evening, no one was around.

I packed up and went to my empty home. Devoid of life, sucked out with my mother's life...

I remember when she had a heart attack while eating dinner. I sat uncharacteristically next to my mother, per her request. She asked me first how did my day go and how was life. The conversation, the time spent with the one person whose heart beats with mine...

I loved her and her me, although I do feel regret, guilt, just as I did when she was still around.

We laughed by the candlelight, the moonlight, the low kitchen light, by the warmth of our love we shared, by the excellent food by the excellent cook, which is my mother, by everything good in life. She pulled me close to her chest when we tired of the food. I leaned down on it and rested my head to listen to the heart that cared enough to bring me into this world. We wrapped our arms around each other and we spoke not another word for a while.

The silence was comforting. Then she leaned down and began to whisper to me. She told me I was so distant from her, from having normal friends (she did not consider Yusuke, Keiko, Botan or Hiei normal and I personally wouldn't blame her), from everything. I made her wonder if there was anything to talk about. This saddened me and she told me if there was anything I needed, I could simply tell.

All this time, I was listening to her heart.

And my youko senses were telling me something was wrong.

I completely ignored it until in the silence, Shiori gripped her heart and didn't let go for a while. Then, she was fine.

My youko senses told me to act fast. Something was wrong with her and she needed help.

I told him calmly to piss off.

My youko senses were stunned for a minute for I heard nothing. Then, they screamed at me, pleading with me, asking me to do this. They had a bad feeling, please, it wouldn't hurt to interrupt a moment of bliss for a lifetime of happiness with her.

What?

They told me there was something afoot with her heart and it wouldn't hurt to check it out.

What? And what the hell do you mean by ''interrupt a moment of bliss for a lifetime of happiness...''? You make no sense. Don't bother me anymore with this.

And with that, I no longer heard my youko senses, I lost myself in deep comfort.

I decided to wake up hours later, when I heard a loud panting disturbing my sleep. My eyes fluttered open and when I fully woke up, I almost shocked myself to the point of puking.

My dear mother was on the floor, pink-faced, holding her heart, panting loudly and rolling around.

Time stood still for a moment for me. I could not comprehend the situation, it shocked me to my core. Then, my youko senses kicked in and I called for an ambulance. After that, it was a blur of cold rain, lights and a bunch of nosey onlookers...

I could still remember when the doctor approached me. Those words I'll never forget. Those words that, to this day, remind me of my failure. Those two, dreadful words. Or maybe, make that five.

''We are sorry. We tried.''

I wanted to shred his white coat and then him, but then remembered what had been nagging me in my sleep and now silenced itself now that I was awake.

She's not gonna make it. You should've listened.

Shut up! All you talk is trash! And I'm trying to sleep! Talkin' all that sh...

That was in my sleep. Now, I wake up to something worse than a nightmare or a mere annoyance. For all its irony, I did not awake to bad dream.

I woke up to reality.

The house was dark now, the darkness even cursing me for my foolishness. Dust swirled in the evening light, forming a tornado around slits and slivers of it. Devoid of life, as though the spirit of it caved in to something empty or cold. Slender, beautiful, soft, skilled hands dropped the coat on the couch she once sat in and went upstairs to his room. He laid down on the bed on one side, rain drops softly falling on his window and on the garden she kept.

I turned over on my side to watch it, to hear it, hit the earth. I watched every drop dissipate and die the minute it hit something. Every drop of life broke apart to pieces after a long fall to earth. They shattered, with no one to care or think about it. Yet it gave us the power to survive. It's the reason anything on this planet has life. Gray skies gave way to a thin, amused smile. How could something that brings life come with such bleak surroundings? My mind goes back to all the days I could paint with rain and gray skies. I could still see myself in the rain those days and beg the gods to end it, to make it all stop. I could still see my hands reaching out towards the sky, palms up, taking in the cold and the wet.

Then I fell asleep.

Outside in the rain.

I was standing outside, looking up with a blank expression. I was watching the raindrops meet their lonely end, again. The drops were dissipating, dying, shattering...again. The sky fell again tonight, right on top of everything. My blank expression watched my hands rise to the sky, palms up again. I asked the gods to spare me from this weak excuse of sadness. Rain is powerful enough to sustain life on Earth, gentle enough to break its fall, but not strong enough to shatter my life. It wasn't strong enough to break a life I no longer wanted. It wasn't strong enough to break these chains, to defy gravity so I could escape.

Just let my life end. I don't want to continue to live in my own mess.

Then I slowly lifted my head to the sky and something cut my face.

Then several of them cut my shoulders, arms, hands and face.

Arms went up quickly to shield me from whatever it was. While doing so, I looked down at the ground and stared in awe.

While staring at the ground, I noticed my feet and legs had similar cuts but were more numerous than at my waist. That's when I inspected my chest and became puzzled.

I ran up to the nearest unoccupied house and looked at myself in the window.

I was completely cut from head to toe.

I had stood outside this entire time and not known I was suffering any cuts or injuries of any kind. I had gone too numb to have noticed, or felt it. And I was bleeding, bad.

Everything in my life piled up, high, high so I couldn't see what it was up to, like the gray clouds in the sky. That's me with all my problems up there, I thought.

And now, I'm falling apart.

Like flying glass.

Everything comes down, shattering, dissipating, dying, forgotten. Just like the pieces of me.

I lifted my hands to the sky and thanked the gods they finally answered my prayers. I suffered one cut after another until finally...

I had lost too much blood.

And the last of the flying glass came down.

Hiei and the rest came over the next morning to recover their belongings from my house. They, however, spent the rest of the morning and half of the afternoon there looking at the house.

They also tried to figure out how I died.

Hiei was the first to note how much glass was lying around. He was also the first to note that I suffered not a single scratch on my body. The flying glass no longer flew, but it did however have one thing in common: Hiei tested it and sure enough, knew that _every_ piece had my blood on it. When he told everyone else, they were all astonished. It puzzled them, and halfway through the afternoon, resolved Hiei clean up all the mess. All said goodbye, and all left.

Of course, though, I watched them do all of this, the whole time.

I simply laid myself across the bed and watch Hiei clean up my mess, pick up the pieces of me.

The flying glass.


End file.
